The Daily Gospel for Saturday, 21 November 2015

The Daily Gospel for Saturday, 21 November 2015
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."[John 6:68]
Saturday of the Thirty-third week in Ordinary Time
Feast of the Church:

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

THE PRESENTATION
OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
(Memorial)

Religious parents never fail by devout prayer to consecrate their children to the divine service and love, both before and after their birth. Some amongst the Jews, not content with this general consecration of their children, offered them to God in their infancy, by the hands of the priests in the Temple, to be lodged in apartments belonging to the Temple, and brought up in attending the priests and Levites in the sacred ministry.

It is an ancient tradition that the Blessed Virgin Mary was thus solemnly offered to God in the Temple in her infancy. This festival of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin the Church celebrates this day.

The tender soul of Mary was then adorned with the most precious graces, an object of astonishment and praise to the angels, and of the highest complacence to the adorable Trinity; the Father looking upon her as his beloved daughter, the Son as one chosen and prepared to become his mother, and the Holy Spirit as his darling spouse. Mary was the first who set up the standard of virginity; and, by consecrating it by a perpetual vow to our Lord, she opened the way to all virgins who have since followed her example.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
Saturday of the Thirty-third week in Ordinary Time
The First Book of  Maccabees 6:1 Last days of Antiochus Epiphanes

6 King Antiochus was traveling through the upper provinces when he heard that Elymais, a city in Persia, was famous for its great quantities of silver and gold. 2 Its temple was very rich and contained gold shields, breastplates, and weapons that Alexander (the son of Philip, the first Macedonian king to rule over the Greeks) left there. 3 So he went and tried to take the city by force and plunder it. But he was unsuccessful because the city’s inhabitants knew about his plan. 4 They resisted him in battle, and he fled. With great disappointment, he planned to return to Babylon.

5 While King Antiochus was in Persia, someone came to him and reported that the armies that had gone into the land of Judah had been thoroughly defeated. 6 Lysias, who had gone first with a strong force, had turned and run from the Jews. The Jews then grew stronger when they took weapons, supplies, and abundant spoils from the armies they defeated. 7 They had taken down the disgusting thing that he had set up on the altar in Jerusalem. Furthermore, they had surrounded the sanctuary and also Lysias’ town Beth-zur with high walls like before.

8 When the king heard this news, he was stunned and badly shaken. He took to his bed, sick from grief. Things hadn’t turned out for him as he had planned. 9 He lay there for many days because he was deeply depressed. He realized that he was dying. 10 He called his closest political advisors[1 Maccabees 6:10 Or Friends] and said to them, “Sleep has left my eyes. I’m depressed from worrying. 11 I say to myself, What distress I’ve come to! What a great flood I’ve now been plunged into! Once I was kind and was loved in my power. 12 But now I recall the wrongs I did in Jerusalem. I seized all its silver and gold equipment. I ordered the destruction of the inhabitants of Judah without good reason. 13 I know it’s because of all this that these misfortunes have come on me. I’m here, dying of bitter disappointment, in a foreign land.”

Psalm 9:2 (1) I give thanks to Adonai with all my heart.

I will tell about all your wonderful deeds.

3 (2) I will be glad and exult in you.

I will sing praise to your name, ‘Elyon.

4 (3) When my enemies turn back,

they stumble and perish before you.

6 (5) You rebuked the nations, destroyed the wicked,

blotted out their name forever and ever.

16 (15) The nations have drowned in the pit they dug,

caught their own feet in the net they hid.

19 (18) For the poor will not always be forgotten

or the hope of the needy perish forever.

The Holy Gospel of Yeshua the Messiah according to Saint Luke 20:27 Some Tz’dukim, who say there is no resurrection, came to Yeshua 28 and put to him a sh’eilah: “Rabbi, Moshe wrote for us that if a man dies leaving a wife but no children, his brother must take the wife and have children to preserve the man’s family line.[Luke 20:28 Deuteronomy 25:5] 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died childless, 30 then the second 31 and third took her, and likewise all seven, but they all died without leaving children. 32 Lastly, the woman also died. 33 In the Resurrection, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven were married to her.”

34 Yeshua said to them, “In this age, men and women marry; 35 but those judged worthy of the age to come, and of resurrection from the dead, do not get married, 36 because they can no longer die. Being children of the Resurrection, they are like angels; indeed, they are children of God.

37 “But even Moshe showed that the dead are raised; for in the passage about the bush, he calls Adonai ‘the God of Avraham, the God of Yitz’chak and the God of Ya‘akov.’[Luke 20:37 Exodus 3:6] 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living — to him all are alive.”

39 Some of the Torah-teachers answered, “Well spoken, Rabbi.” 40 For they no longer dared put to him a sh’eilah.

Saturday of the Thirty-third week in Ordinary Time

Commentary of the day:

Theodore of Mopsuestia (?-428), Bishop and theologian 

Commentary on St John’s Gospel, Book 2 

Birth into the new creation

“Baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection,” (Romans 6:3-5). Thus does St Paul clearly show us that our new birth through baptism is the symbol of our resurrection after death. This will be achieved in us through the power of the Spirit, as it is said: “It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible. It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body,” (I Corinthians 14:42f.). What this means is that, just as our body here below, so long as its soul is present, enjoys a visible life, so it will receive then, in the same way, an eternal and incorruptible life through the power of the Spirit. 

The same thing applies to the birth given us in baptism, which is the symbol of our resurrection. Through it we receive grace by the same Spirit, but with moderation and in the form of a token. We will receive it in its fullness when we truly rise and incorruptibility is indeed given to us. That is why, when the apostle Paul speaks of the life to come, he tries to reassure his listeners with these words: “Not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for the redemption of our bodies,” (Romans 8:23). For if we have received here and now the firstfruits of grace, we expect to receive them in their fullness when the happiness of the resurrection is given to us.

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